Research and Publications
Forecasts of sagebrush distribution across western land management agencies: Who owns the sagebrush?
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Species distribution models were used to predict how sagebrush distribution could change in response to climate change across land management agencies in the West. Models predict that sagebrush habitats will shift northward and upward in elevation and decrease greatly in extent. Mountainous higher elevation areas were predicted to maintain more sagebrush. U.S. Forest Service lands were predicted to lose proportionally less sagebrush area than non-federal land or the BLM. Analysis suggests that some agencies such as the BLM with the most experience managing sagebrush will lose much of this habitat, while other agencies such as the USFS may have new sagebrush habitats to manage.
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In the future, areas where sagebrush will expand, the leading edge, are predicted to be on the northern edge of its current range—predominately northeast Montana. Conversely, areas where the current sagebrush distribution is predicted to contract, the trailing edge, reside at the southern edge of the current distribution, including the Great Basin. Both of these projected shifts are most likely in response to predicted increased minimum temperature and changes in precipitation amount and seasonality. Climate and hydrological factors have the potential to strongly affect sagebrush regeneration because sagebrush does not reproduce asexually and depends solely on germination rates and seedling survival. By exploring these relationships using an ecohydrologic simulation model, we found that sagebrush germination is not expected to be limiting at either the leading or trailing edge. However, seedling survival was expected to decrease at the trailing edge while increasing at the leading edge.
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Paleovegetation studies show that even prior to anthropogenic influence, sage steppe communities were dynamic, and in some cases, susceptible to replacement by other vegetation communities (including forests) under changing climatic conditions.
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Public land management agencies are under increasing pressure to consider climate change impacts in their land-use planning process. As a first step, many agencies are conducting vulnerability assessments to identify the components of an ecosystem, or conservation targets, most at-risk from climate change. Vulnerability assessment is the first step towards a climate change adaptation plan.
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This study found evidence of a gap between risk perceptions of WUI residents and wildfire professionals. On average, residents underestimated the overall risk of their property. One third of the study participants reported having a neighbor that they think is increasing their risk. Perceived likelihood of fire reaching the property and causing damages was positively correlated with perceiving a neighbor is not taking action. The only consistent predictor of defensible space was the level of defensible space on neighboring properties. Our results suggest that programs that are effective in getting single homeowners to mitigate risk may have benefits that spillover to neighboring properties, and risk neutral/tolerant individuals lived on parcels that were rated by the professional as having less defensible space and more ignitable structure materials.
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Smoke is challenging. It can be lofted high into the atmosphere to interact with cloud processes. It can smolder near the ground, depositing emissions. The combination of aerosols and trace gases create their own chemical mix, with reactions that are as yet unidentified. Temperature and atmospheric water content interact with the smoke plume and fog processes. Smoke also blocks the transmission of solar radiation, hindering photolysis reactions. Many of the trace gases emitted from wildland fires have yet to be identified, as do the intermediary products produced in a plume. With the outlook for more wildfires in the future, especially in a changing climate—and with tighter health standards—understanding these processes will become more critical in the years to come.
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This study reviewed published studies on reburns in fire-adapted ecosystems of the world, including temperate forests of North America, semi-arid forests and rangelands, tropical and subtropical forests, grasslands and savannas, and Mediterranean ecosystems. To date, research on reburns is unevenly distributed across the world with a relative abundance of literature in Australia, Europe and North America and a scarcity of studies in Africa, Asia and South America. This review highlights the complex role of repeated fires in modifying vegetation and fuels, and patterns of subsequent wildfires. In fire-prone ecosystems, the return of fire is inevitable, and legacies of past fires, or their absence, often dictate the characteristics of subsequent fires.
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This project quantifies the effects of fuel treatments and previously burned areas on daily fire management costs, as well as summarizes recent encounter rates between fuel treatments and
wildland fires across the conterminous United States. Unexpectedly, we found that encounters with fuel treatments and previous fires increase daily fire management costs. Managers working in the field validated the concept suggesting that fuel treatments and previous fires are often areas where suppression efforts are applied in greater force.
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The climate of the US is strongly connected to the changing global climate. The statements below highlight past, current, and projected climate changes for the US and the globe.
Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) over the last 115 years (1901–2016). This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe. These trends are expected to continue over climate timescales.
This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.
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Findings of this research suggest that a hedge betting approach (employing more than one restoration method) can increase the probability of successful restoration. Broadcast seeding seed pillows and bare seed over two years resulted in a sagebrush restoration success rate of 86% compared to 36% if only one method was used in one year. Information generated from this study will help land managers successfully restore sage-grouse habitat after wildfires by pairing restoration methods with site characteristics.